I've lain awake at night wondering how to defend against Wayne Rooney. Had nightmares before playing Chelsea's John Terry and Frank Lampard. Spent hours worrying about facing Steven Gerrard.

All four are brilliant players - many, many times better than me. So I can't quite believe that for the third game out of four, they and the rest of Fabio Capello's side were so poor when it mattered against Germany

I've said before that putting Gerrard out on the left is a total waste but I don't believe this defeat is Fabio Capello's doing. The players must look at themselves and ask how it is that they can perform so brilliantly in the Premier League week after week but did so badly in South Africa.

Maybe Rooney, who I believe is one of the world's greatest players, wasn't fit. Maybe England's system didn't suit Gerrard and maybe Lampard wasn't given the same license to roam forward that he normally enjoys.

But none of that fully explains why England were so bad against Germany; probably the worst they've been in this tournament. And, particularly, why the defence was just dreadful.

Glen Johnson and even Ashley Cole cannot escape criticism, but I have never seen two international centre-backs pulled as far apart as Terry and Matthew Upson were by Germany. The lack of pace was embarrassing and ven a 35-year-old Robbie Savage might have chased down better.

Germany deserved to win and should have been three or four up by half-time, but course Frank Lampard's ghost goal was a massive turning point. If England had gone in at half-time with the scores level at 2-2, the momentum in the dressing room would have been so huge that they would have been able to shake off a shocking performance and gone on to have a real chance.

Instead they were cheated. But I'm still not a believe in goal-line technology.

Instead, FIFA should be examining whether the officiating team from Uruguay was good enough to take control of such a massive game.

We have seen time and again in the World Cup and Champions League that referees who spent each weekend working on lower-class football simply aren't good enough for major competition.

Huge matches like England v Germany demand the very finest of Spanish or Italian refs - not someone from the football outposts.